Expect to 'age out' of your career, says Vera Wang - she's had at least four

From making history as Vogue's youngest-ever fashion editor to creating a gown fit for a Kennedy wedding – which would end up covered in grass stains – Vera Wang chronicles her career's surprising trajectory and shares some of her hard-won lessons as a woman at the top of her field.

Vera Wang may be best known for crafting some of the most memorable wedding gowns of all time. Mariah Carey, Victoria Beckham, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alicia Keys are just a few of the women who have chosen the designer for their big days. Less known is the fact that design wasn't her first foray into the fashion world… or even her second. Speaking to BBC special correspondent Katty Kay, on her sit-down series Influential, Wang shares her long journey, from working at US Vogue to having her own creations grace those same pages.

Speaking to Kay, Wang shares that – like a true drama – her life and career have been a series of acts, and that each act has included the ever-present spectre of time looming over her. As a teenager, the designer wanted to be an Olympic figure skater, but failed to make the cut. After that, she landed a position as fashion editor at Vogue right after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, New York, making history in the process at the age of 23.

"I was the youngest, probably, woman to ever be given the title of editor. Probably to this day," Wang says.

Her time at the magazine spanned 17 years, but like her time on the ice, Wang says that her skills didn't always match her passion. She didn't qualify for the 1968 Olympic Games in Grenoble and she never rose to the title of editor-in-chief.

"Some of the things I have adored the most, and by that, I mean passionately loved, are not fields I necessarily succeeded at," she says.

It wasn't until she was 40 years old, with Vogue and a position at Ralph Lauren behind her, that she launched her namesake fashion label. Bridal collections were just the beginning. Eventually, her brand would expand to include ready-to-wear, shoes, sunglasses, fine jewellery, home goods and even her own prosecco. Becoming too old for ice skating and the glossy world of magazines made Wang reassess what her next steps could be, even before she had the idea of putting her name on anything, much less everything.

"Women were considered transparent at a certain age, even in terms of their career," Wang says. "You will age out of a career. I do not just mean modeling, I do not just mean being an editor," she adds, explaining to Kay that it takes a certain grit to outlast these supposed expiration dates. "It is not about age, it is about style. And that is always how I felt. I have never not felt that way."

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When she decided to start with bridal gowns, Wang reflected on the approach to her own wedding. In 1989, Wang married investor Arthur P Becker (the two have since separated) and he had only one request of her for the ceremony.

"Please do not come in 'fashion'. Please look like a bride. [...] I want to make sure you look like a bride," Wang recalls him telling her.

She wouldn't be satisfied with simply following protocol. Blending her Chinese heritage into the ceremony, which was interfaith and drew from both Baptist and Jewish traditions, she inadvertently helped popularise the trend of brides slipping into a more festive look for their receptions.

"I got to change, because in Chinese culture, you change from the western [wedding] dress [into a] Chinese dress. But I changed into a party dress for afterwards. I started a trend way back in 1989, to change," Wang says.

A tradition of the "going-away" outfit dates back to the 1930s. It was generally something more comfortable for brides to wear to bid goodbye to their guests before being whisked away on their honeymoons. Wang’s choice to slip into something more festive has since become more widespread. High-profile brides – from the Princess of Wales (then the Duchess of Cambridge) and Princess Eugenie, to US actor Mandy Moore – frequently opt for a second dress for their evening reception.

What she did with her wedding would come to mark Wang's go-to move of adding a dash of irreverence to the usually stuffy world of bridal fashion – something her clients could feel when they chose one of Wang's gowns.

"My first client was Ethel Kennedy. Her son, Max, was getting married and marrying a beautiful girl who was a law student. I spent eight months on that dress, and within 10 minutes of the ceremony, she was out kicking a football with the Kennedy brothers," Wang says.

Now aged 75, Wang is well aware of her age, and that age is a topic of conversation around her. She tells Kay that she's noticed a shift in individuals being more critical of others and themselves today, a trend she blames on the rise of social media. Instead of focussing on how other people saw her as she grew older, Wang notes that as she has navigated the various acts of her career and life, she has focused on finding her passions and not what she saw in the mirror. This was a privilege, she reflects, of the era in which she was ageing.

"We did not have social media, and everybody did not age right before your very eyes, and everybody was not critical," she tells the BBC. "It was really more about finding your way." Looking back at the 1990s and 2000s, she adds, "I do not see that obsession with ageing that I have felt for the last two decades." Nevertheless, Wang's red carpet looks and social media posts prove that she's not shying away from the image that she cultivated over the years. She stays true to the sky-high platforms, micro-mini hemlines and long, lean silhouettes that have characterised her designs and personal appearances over the decades. She tells Kay that her age doesn't factor in how she gets dressed – and it never has.

Influential with Katty Kay airs on Fridays at 21:30 ET on the BBC News channel.

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